But Minneapolis City Attorney James Moore repeatedly characterized this narrative as a “fantastical story” in his own closing statement. Moore described Lee as an armed and dangerous gang member who presented a grave threat to Andersen on that summer night three years ago.

Following a one-week trial before U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson, the 12-member, all-white jury will now decide which account to believe. Their deliberations will undoubtedly hinge on whether they believe Lee had a gun when he was shot eight times.

The incendiary case is hardly the first high-profile incident involving Minneapolis police officers and Asian residents. Six years ago, Duy Ngo, who is of Vietnamese descent, was working undercover when he was shot by an unknown assailant. Responding to the scene, fellow officer Charles Storlie mistakenly shot Ngo at least six additional times. The city subsequently settled a lawsuit filed by Ngo for $4.5 million.

Then in 2007 Minneapolis police officers mistakenly raided a house in North Minneapolis occupied by a Hmong family. Police fired 22 bullets during the raid, but somehow failed to injure any of the eight terrified family members. The MPD later admitted that it made a mistake and that the drug suspects they were investigating were African American. The Hmong family eventually received a $600,000 settlement from the city.

Routine patrol turns deadly

In the Fong Lee case, some basic narrative facts, as presented at the trial and in court documents, aren’t in dispute. Andersen and his patrol partner, Craig Benz, didn’t even know each other before that fateful night. But a bloody summer on Minneapolis’ North Side brought them together. Gov. Tim Pawlenty had ordered a contingent of state troopers dispatched to the city to help keep a lid on the violence, and Benz was among the chosen officers.

On July 22, both officers showed up at the Fourth Precinct Headquarters for their standard 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. shift. Anderson was a first-year Minneapolis cop, with previous law enforcement experience working at the Cass County Sheriff’s Office and the Forest Lake Police Department. Benz had spent four years working as a state trooper. Neither of their regular partners were present at roll call. So Andersen and Benz ended up heading out in a squad car together.

Not three hours into their shift, Andersen turned onto North Third Street, near Cityview Elementary School, and they came upon a group of five Hmong males on bikes. “We’re just going to drive behind these guys and see what happens,” Andersen later recalled saying in a deposition.

Andersen drove behind the boys as they peddled down the street. According to testimony from Andersen and Benz, they saw Lee and another of the bicyclists suspiciously pass something between them. Several eyewitnesses reported that the vehicle then ran into Lee, knocking him off his bicycle. But surveillance video shown during the court case strongly suggests that Lee dumped the bike as the squad car closed in and took off running.

Both Benz and Andersen reported seeing a gun in Lee’s right hand. The latter relayed this information to dispatch: “Chasing one with a gun.” Both cops then took off in pursuit of Lee. Benz briefly paused, however, considering whether to take the squad car. Andersen continued pursuing Lee around the school, and says he repeatedly called on him to drop the gun. “I know I said it at least 10 times,” Andersen recalled on the stand.

The Minneapolis cop testified that, while he was out of sight of his partner or school security cameras, Lee turned toward him and started to raise his weapon. Anderson responded by opening fire. His first shot missed the target, but the next three hit Lee.

Lee crumpled to the ground, but Andersen still felt he presented a threat. According to Andersen’s testimony, Lee was seated on the ground when he again raised the gun in a threatening manner. Andersen unloaded five more bullets into him. The 19-year-old died at the scene.

Andersen never approached the body after pumping it full of bullets. He testified that he didn’t want there to be any questions about whether Lee had been carrying a gun. “I never wanted anyone to be able to say I put it there,” he said.

Backup arrived almost immediately after the shooting. Responding officers reported discovering a Russian-made handgun roughly three feet from Lee’s bloody corpse.

But the four Asian males who were with Lee on the day in question testified that he was unarmed at the time. Footage from security cameras does not clearly show a gun in Lee’s possession during the pursuit, while the weapons of both Andersen and Benz are easily evident.

No traceable evidence on handgun

The history of the Russian-made handgun further muddies the waters. It was originally purchased in 1996 by Dang Her in Fresno, California. Her subsequently moved to Minnesota, taking the weapon with him. Then in February 2004, the handgun was stolen from Her’s residence in North Minneapolis. He reported the theft to police. Later that month he was contacted by Minneapolis officer Michael Fossum. Her testified that Fossum told him the gun had been recovered from a snowbank and that he could have it back once the cops were done using it as evidence.

Her never heard anything else about the gun until four days after Lee’s shooting. Two plainclothes officers showed up at his house asking about the weapon. Her recounted the previous interaction with the MPD regarding the handgun.

“I told them to my knowledge the gun was over at the MPD police department,” Her testified on the first day of the trial, speaking through a translator.

“How did they respond?” asked Padden. “They didn’t really say anything,” Her observed, “but they look at each other and their faces kind of turned red.”

If the gun really had been in police custody during the prior two years then there’s no way Lee could have been carrying it at the time that he was killed. This raised the specter that it was a “drop gun,” planted at the scene of the shooting by officers to protect a brother in blue.

But Minneapolis officers maintain any suspicions about the gun’s origins are simply due to a bureaucratic mishap. Fossum testified at trial that the weapon found in the snowbank in February 2004 was actually a Belgian-made handgun and that he’d simply made a mistake in telling Her that his gun had been recovered by police. He further stated that he’d never seen the Russian firearm prior to testifying at the trial.

The gun recovered at the scene raised suspicions for other reasons as well. It contained no fingerprints, smudge marks, blood or any other evidence that might link it to Fong Lee. “It’s not just lack of prints,” Padden said in his closing argument. “It’s no trace evidence whatsoever. None.”

But defense attorneys sought to undermine this fact with testimony from forensics experts. Shannon Holmes, a forensics scientist with the MPD, performed the analysis of the gun that was recovered from the crime scene. She testified that traceable evidence is found on only 12 percent of weapons recovered. “Did it surprise you when you didn’t find fingerprints on this weapon? ” Assistant City Attorney Gregory Sautter asked her on  the stand. “No it did not,” Holmes replied.

Now the jury will have to weigh which account to believe and whether or not to award damages to Lee’s family. Richard Hechter, the other attorney representing the family, pleaded with jurors to remember that a grieving family is at the heart of the case.  “I am very, very respectfully asking for your help to right a wrong and find justice, once and for all, for the family,” he said.

Update, May 28: No excessive force in Fong Lee shooting, jury rules

Fong Lee (Minneapolis Police Department)

Did Fong Lee have a gun on July 22, 2006, when he was shot eight times by Minneapolis police officer Jason Andersen? That’s the crucial question that a 12-member jury should begin deliberating Wednesday.

Attorneys for Lee’s family wrapped up their case Tuesday, arguing that the Russian-made handgun recovered at the scene was planted on Lee in order to cover up for Andersen’s fatal mistake. The City of Minneapolis then called just four witnesses in making the case that Andersen legitimately feared for his life and the shooting was justified. Closing arguments and jury instructions are slated for Wednesday morning.

After attorneys for Lee’s family had finished presenting their case, Minneapolis City Attorney Jim Moore argued that the lawsuit should be tossed out by U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson because the plaintiffs had failed to present a credible case. But Magnuson quickly ruled from the bench that the case would proceed to a jury.

The city then presented its first witness, Michael Brave, a veteran law-enforcement officer who has frequently consulted with police departments on proper procedures and training. Brave testified that Andersen was justified in using lethal force against Lee.

“Officers do not have to be shot before they can return fire,” he said. “That’s just not part of the job.”

Brave further testified that even if Lee didn’t have a gun, it doesn’t necessarily mean the shooting was excessive force. “If officer Andersen did reasonably believe he had a gun then the shooting is justified,” he said under cross examination.

Also taking the stand was Sgt. Michael Grahn, of the Minnneapolis Police Department. He arrived on the scene just minutes after Lee was killed. Surveillance video of Grahn standing by the bloody corpse was shown to the jury.

“I’m looking at a gun,” Grahn, testified, when asked what he was doing. “It was a unique looking gun.”

On cross-examination, however, attorney Michael Padden pointed out that there was no mention of a weapon in Grahn’s initial police report from that evening. “Your report doesn’t document seeing the gun, correct?” Padden asked. “Yes,” Grahn answered.

The final witness of the trial was Tina Schreiber. The North Minneapolis resident was enjoying a family barbeque at her residence at the time of the shooting.

“I heard somebody say, ‘Put the gun down,’ three or four times,” Schreiber testified. That was quickly followed by gunfire.

But Schreiber was uncertain how many gunshots subsequently rang out and admitted that the details of the night are a bit hazy.

“All I know is I was in my backyard and there was a kid shot,” she said.

Judge Paul Magnuson

Day two of the Fong Lee trial apparently started off exactly where it left off — with U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson extremely pissed off. This morning he threatened to declare a mistrial in the civil case  and force the attorneys for Lee’s family to cover all costs of the proceeding, according to Rochelle Olson’s excellent play-by-play over at the Star Tribune.

The legal mischief started late yesterday afternoon when attorney Michael Padden, who is representing Lee’s family, flashed a photo of his bullet-riddled corpse on a projection screen in the courtroom. Lee’s family, who were seated in the courtroom, began to audibly sob.

The problem with the grisly picture: it hadn’t been admitted into evidence and therefore shouldn’t have been shown to the jury. Padden claimed it was an innocent mistake.

Judge Magnuson apparently wasn’t buying it. “Let’s be candid,” Magnuson said. “You’ve lost my trust, and you’re going to earn it back. It’s as simple as that.”

Magnuson offered a similar tongue-lashing at the close of yesterday’s proceedings. “To spring something like that is incredible,” Magnuson told Padden, according to the account by David Hanners, who has been relentlessly bird-dogging the case for the Pioneer Press. “And to spring something like that on a jury without it being in evidence is wrong. It’s wrong. It’s just the wrong thing to do.”

The civil suit stems from the 2006 shooting of Lee by Minneapolis police officer Jason Andersen at CityView Performing Arts Magnet school on the city’s North Side.  The 19-year-old was shot eight times and died at the scene. The cops insist that Lee was carrying a handgun and that Andersen only fired because he feared for his life. But the attorneys for Lee’s family contend that there was no such gun and that police planted the weapon after the fact to cover up the officer’s fatal mistake.

Minnesota media mostly keep those two straight, but even locals find the profusion of Scandinavian surnames in the various recount venues vexing. Typical is KARE-11′s recent confusion of Roger Magnuson, an attorney who makes Coleman’s recount arguments before the state Supreme Court, with Eric Magnuson, the Supreme Court’s chief justice who doesn’t hear such cases due to his current service on the State Canvassing Board. (To make matters worse, there’s also a U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson in Minnesota.)

And don’t even get started with another name that’s so common and so golden in Minnesota politics that it’s inspired a term –”The Anderson Effect” — to describe the often ill-informed preference voters give to candidates who bear it.

You can look in any political direction in Minnesota and find an Anderson. The last major recount in Minnesota 46 years ago involved Gov. Elmer L. Andersen (slight spelling variant there). The last non-Jewish major-party candidate (as it happens) for the U.S. Senate seat that’s now under recount was Joan Anderson Growe in 1984 (the others, all Jews, being senators Rudy Boschwitz, the late Paul Wellstone and Coleman). And this year an unknown Independence Party candidate named Bob Anderson drew a whopping 10 percent of the vote, possibly helping an embattled incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann win re-election in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District.

And sure enough, there’s a pair of Andersons on the Minnesota Supreme Court: Paul and G. Barry. The latter has recused himself from the courtroom for recount matters while he serves in the recount effort as an appointed member of the State Canvassing Board, just like his colleague Eric Magnuson — who was himself appointed this year to be chief justice after the retirement of a man who spent more than a quarter century on the state’s highest bench … a man by the name of (you guessed it) Anderson.

On a day like today when both the state Supreme Court and the State Canvassing Board are in action, and Scandinavian names are flying through rarefied air in the halls of power like so many potato pancakes, Minnesota needs to consult its most time-honored pair of experts in the Abbott and Costello vein: Sven and Ole.

SVEN: Oy, Ole, this recount is taking longer than lutefisk. Who’s deciding this here thing then?

OLE: Minnesota State Canvassing Board, they say.

SVEN: Who’s on that?

OLE: Well, there’s Magnuson and Anderson…

SVEN: OK, Magnuson and Anderson are canvassers.

OLE: No, Magnuson and Anderson are justices on the Minnesota Supreme Court.

SVEN: You said Magnuson and Anderson are on the State Canvassing Board!

OLE: Yah, for the recount they are but then they go back to being on the Supreme Court.

SVEN: So who’s on the Supreme Court while Magnuson and Anderson are doing the recount?

OLE: Well, there’s Anderson …

SVEN: But you said Anderson’s on the canvassing board!

OLE: That’s the other Anderson.

SVEN: So there’s still an Anderson on the Supreme Court?

OLE: Yah, he told Norm Coleman’s attorney, “This is not Florida.”

SVEN: “This is not Florida?” Well, who said it was?

OLE: Was what?

SVEN: Florida!

OLE: Magnuson said it was.

SVEN: Magnuson at the canvassing board said this is Florida?

OLE: No, Magnuson at the Supreme Court.

SVEN: There’s another Magnuson at the Supreme Court?

OLE: Roger.